A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,41

environment. My daughter loves riding and so forth.”

Honey couldn’t help being grateful that Rebecca wasn’t there to hear the dismissive way her mother spoke about her.

As a girl, she’d always wished for a mother and now she realized they weren’t always the loving parents of her fantasies.

“Your grace?” It was the sour-looking servant. She gave Honey a narrow-eyed look before turning back to her mistress. “You know it’s time for your midday rest.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Stapleton. I am feeling a bit weary.” The duchess sighed, as if a strenuous activity awaited her. Why would she need a nap when all she did was lie around all day?

Wisely, she kept her wondering to herself.

Instead, she stood. “I shall leave you now. Shall we say tomorrow, the same time?”

The duchess looked at Stapleton, who pursed her lips and gave a grudging nod. “No longer than a half hour.”

Honey forced a smile. “Of course.”

The maid frog-marched her to the door and then shut it in her face.

Honey stood in the same position as less than thirty minutes earlier: staring at the duchess’s door.

She turned and began the long process of returning to her room.

At the current pace—less than thirty minutes a day, and with half the meetings cancelled—she’d end up staying at Whitcomb for half a year just to get the sketches she needed.

Oh, and you’d just hate that, wouldn’t you? Trapped in a house with Simon Fairchild for six months.

With a pang, Honey thought back to the yelling she’d overheard earlier. If what she’d heard was true—about him leaving—it didn’t sound like she’d have to worry about Simon bothering her again.

Chapter Twelve

Two Weeks Later …

Simon woke up confused, the bed linens twisted around his naked torso like a thick, damp vine.

Dim gray light seeped through the combined shutters and drapes that he’d kept closed for the past week and, for a moment, he thought that was what had woken him: sunlight.

But then something rumbled—a door being repeatedly struck by something hard, like a fist—and his brother’s muffled voice came from the other side of the heavy oak.

“Simon, open the door.” The duke paused, as if he could hear Simon’s sluggish brain struggling to come awake. “Don’t make me fetch the innkeeper.”

Simon groaned and let his head fall back on the pillow before croaking. “What the devil do you want?”

“Open. The. Door.”

He stared at the whorls on the ceiling, the once-white plaster-stained tea-brown from centuries of candle and fire smoke. The boards squeaked outside the door, as if his brother were preparing to go downstairs and drag the innkeeper up here. To be a witness to the duke scolding Simon as if he were a ten-year-old boy.

Simon sighed as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, levering himself up. He winced when not-yet-healed bullet wound snagged on the rough woolen blanket. It had been almost twelve days since he’d been injured, but the damned thing still hurt like the dickens.

When he was standing, he realized that he was naked and briefly considered slipping on his robe, which was draped over the back of the chair; he decided against it. Maybe if he made Wyndham uncomfortable enough, he would leave sooner.

He wrenched open the door and smirked at his brother. “Good morning, your grace.” He gave him a shallow, mocking bow.

Wyndham frowned slightly but otherwise did not acknowledge Simon’s nudity. He brushed past him into the room. Simon was more than a little disappointed. Was there nothing he could do to get a reaction out of his brother?

“Shut the door, Simon.” The duke tossed his hat onto a table cluttered with books, empty wine bottles, and dirty crockery. Lily—who also acted as The George’s maid—had been less than friendly to Simon after he’d politely refused her services in his bed.

He hadn’t refused because he’d not wanted a wench—because he bloody well had. Rather, he’d refused because every time he closed his eyes, he saw that damned Honey Keyes in his mind’s eye.

As much of a bounder as he could be, he drew the line at bedding one woman while thinking about another.

“Here,” Wyndham said, snatching up Simon’s robe and throwing it onto the bed before lowering himself into the room’s only chair.

Simon was tempted to simply walk out of the room and down the stairs, out of the inn, and all the way to Everley. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that he had exceptionally soft, sensitive feet.

He slammed the door and then flung himself onto the